Tom Cruise makes Ethan Hawke 'angry': Here's why!

Ethan Hawke opened up at the Sundance Film Festival about the pressures actors face in the age of Tom Cruise’s stunt-driven blockbuster filmmaking.

While promoting his new historical drama The Weight, Hawke admitted that Cruise’s relentless commitment to performing his own death-defying stunts has reshaped Hollywood expectations.

“Tom Cruise has totally changed what’s expected for actors,” Hawke told Variety. “Some part of me is getting angry over the years because everyone somehow feels like they’re less if they use a stunt team.”

Cruise, of course, has built his Mission: Impossible legacy on jaw-dropping stunts, from scaling skyscrapers to dangling from airplanes.

In the latest installment, Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning, Cruise nearly broke his back during a biplane sequence, separating finger joints and taking a brutal hit mid-air, according to director Christopher McQuarrie.

Hawke contrasted that approach with his own experience on The Weight.

He described it as “human” and grounded.

“There were no ridiculous stunts… It’s not about things blowing up, so most of the stunts were things we could do. They weren’t superhero things,” he explained.

Still, Hawke wasn’t spared from physical challenges.

In one sequence, his character Samuel who is a father on a desperate quest to save his daughter must cross an icy river.

“This was one of the hardest summers of my life,” Hawke told Entertainment Weekly.

“Being in the water, being in the woods, I keep saying, ‘Oh, it’s an action movie without that much action,’ but it was exhausting. Just worrying about the ticks alone.”